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According to the web traffic analyser, Google still dominates the US search engine market with a 71.47 percent share, Bing grabbed 16.28 percent and Yahoo came in third with 10.22 percent.

"It remains to be seen if Bing falls away after the initial novelty and promotion but at first sight it looks like Microsoft is on to a winner," said Aodhan Cullen, CEO of StatCounter.

"Steve Ballmer is quoted as saying that he wanted Microsoft to become the second biggest search engine within five years. Following the breakdown in talks to acquire Yahoo for a cost of $44bn, it looks as if he may have just achieved that with Bing much sooner and a lot cheaper than anticipated."

Microsoft first took the wrappers off Bing - which they're trying to dub a 'decision' engine, rather than a search engine - on May 2. at the All Things Digital Conference in California. The company had initially said the service would be up and running June 3, but had it operational two days early.

Bing is the update to Microsoft's far-from-beloved Live Search. The update, which was code-named Kumo, comes with a number of related services, including Bing Travel, Cashback and Maps for Enterprise. Paired with the company's hefty marketing muscle, the new service is expected to help Microsoft take on search behemoth Google.

According to StatCounter, the plan might be working, at least at the outset.

In the worldwide search engine market, Bing is holding its own. StatCounter reported that Bing grabbed 5.62 percent of the market, squeaking past Yahoo, which has 5.13 percent. Google still dominates, though, with 87.62 percent.

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Marco said: Comments,Marco,There are lots of opinions as to whether Bing is number two or was number two or whatever. But regardless of its current rank, it is and will continue to be a major player and those who employ paid search as a strategy need to consider it. See here for more: domusinc.blogspot.com/2009/06/... .